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Monday, August 25, 2014

Giveaway and Excerpt of Tempt Me Eternally by Gena Showalter

Grab your e-reader and enjoy Tempt Me Eternally by Gena Showalter and many more e-books this summer. Wherever you go, Pocket Star-E Nights are guaranteed to make your evenings shine! This week, Pocket Star-E Nights is featuring:

Tempt Me Eternally by Gena Showalter

Summary:

The
huntress becomes the hunted in this sizzling paranormal romance from New
York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Gena Showalter,
previously published as part of the Deep Kiss of Winter anthology with #1 New
York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole, now available as a stand-alone
ebook!

With only skin-to-skin contact, Aleaha Love can change her appearance, assuming
any identity. As an AIR (Alien Investigation and Removal) agent, her newest
mission is to capture a group of otherworldly warriors. So imagine her surprise
when the hunter becomes the hunted, and she’s taken captive by dangerously seductive
Breean, a golden-skinned, iron-willed commander, who threatens everything
Aleaha stands for—and makes her want to be only herself, for the first time in
her life.

EXCERPT:

They were coming.

Warriors unlike any other. Monsters of
unimaginable power. Otherworlders. Fierce creatures with the ability to look
inside your soul, glimpse your greatest fear, and present it to you with an
unrepentant smile.

Should’ve stayed home, Aleaha Love thought. ’Cause we’re
gonna get spanked. Hard. And not ina good way.
Instead, she’d answered her cell and her captain’s call to action, and now
found herself crouched in the middle of a gnarled forest, staring into a
snow-laden clearing, moonlight shooting bright amber rays in every direction as
flakes wafted in the breeze like fairy dust.

Though she wore white from head to
toe, had a pyre-gun stretched forward, and was burrowed in a drift as cover,
she felt exposed. Vulnerable. And yeah, damn cold.

What in the hell did I get myself into?

“Everyone in position?” a voice
whispered from her headset.

A whisper, yeah, but it startled her.
She managed to cut off a yelp, but couldn’t stop tremors from sweeping through
her. Steady. She’d never hear the end of it if she accidentally fired
her weapon before the fight had even begun.

“Premature weapon ejaculation,” they’d
say with a chuckle, and she wouldn’t be able to deny it.

One by one, twenty teammates uttered
their assent. They had wicked cool nicknames like Hawk Eye and Ghost. Her turn,
she said, “Lollipop, in place.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dress her up and
watch her play bad alien, delicious cop,” the boys had laughed before giving
her the stupid moniker her first day on the job. “Naughty lawbreakers will want
to taste her, not outrun her.”

That had been, what? Five weeks ago,
she realized with a jolt. Oh, how life had changed since then. From hiding in
the shadows, afraid of what she was, to working cases with New Chicago’s elite
team of smart-asses, content with her somewhat pampered existence. A pampered
existence she didn’t deserve and hadn’t earned, but whatever. No guilt for her.
Really.

“Need someone to snuggle against,
Lolli?” a quiet, amused male voice asked. Devyn, supposedly a king of some sort
and a self-proclaimed collector of women. He wasn’t really a member of Alien
Investigation and Removal but was a special contractor, as well as the man
who’d once wired her gun to blow bubbles rather than fire at target practice.

Word on the street, he was more
powerful than God and deadlier than the devil, though no one would tell her
outright what he could do. He was an otherworlder, that much she knew. That,
and most of AIR’s flunkies kept their distance from him. They feared him, which
only heightened Aleaha’s need to keep her own secrets.

She, too, was different.

She didn’t know whether she was human
or alien. Or both. She didn’t know whether there were others like her or not.
She didn’t know who her parents were or why they’d abandoned her on the dirty
streets of the Southern District—a.k.a Whore’s Corner—of New Chicago, and she
didn’t care. Not anymore. All she knew was that she could assume anyone’s
identity with only a touch. That person’s face became hers; their height became
hers; their body became hers.

For years, she’d lived in fear of
being found out, of being hunted and tortured for her unnatural ability, afraid
that everyone who looked at her saw the truth and knew she wasn’t who she
claimed to be. But she couldn’t drop the mask. As herself, she was wanted for
theft, assault against a police officer, and more theft. And then maybe kinda
sorta murder. Not that she was culpable. He’d deserved it.

She’d rather lose a limb than spend
any more time in jail.

Her fear of discovery was waning,
though, and she was settling comfortably into her newest life as Macy Briggs. Maybe
one day I’ll even be worthy of it. Again, not that she felt guilty. Really.

But with Christmas only a few weeks
away . . . ugh. Worst. Holiday. Ever. Her “friends” would bake Macy’s favorite
foods, not Aleaha’s. They would give her gifts meant for Macy, and reminisce
fondly about good ole days she knew nothing about, and she would have to smile
through every minute of it. And yeah, okay. Fine. Then she would feel
guilty.

“What, ignoring me?” Devyn said with
another of those snarky laughs. “Wasn’t like I was going to ask to feel you up
or anything. I mean, I was just gonna surprise you with my handsiness.”

God, she was on the job, yet she’d
lost track of her thoughts. Mortifying. “Can you take nothing

seriously?”

“Hello, have you met me? I take making
out very seriously.”

All the men on the line snorted in
their attempts to muffle their laughter. They might be wary of him, but they
couldn’t help but enjoy his perverted sense of humor.

“Fuck you, Chuckles,” she said, trying
not to reveal her amusement. Irreverent bastard.

“Excellent. We’re on the same page,
because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do to you.”

Give herself to Devyn? Not in this
lifetime, and not because he wasn’t attractive. If anything, he was too attractive.
Hell, he was total screw-like-ananimal perfection. Tall, with dark hair, wide
amber eyes, and skin that glittered like a jewel; there was no one else like
him. There was a recipe for his smile, though: wicked desire dipped in
acid, wrapped in steel and sprinkled with candy. The recipe for his laughter?
Well, that was wicked desire tossed in the gutter, wrung out in a whorehouse,
and slathered with scented body lotion. Women threw themselves at him
constantly, and he ate it up like they were his own personal smorgasbord.

They probably were. Thank God she
wasn’t in the market for a boyfriend. Or, rather, a lover, since that’s all
someone as fickle as Devyn could ever amount to. Macy—the real Macy—had been
dating a piece of scum Aleaha was still trying to lose and she didn’t have the
time or patience to throw anyone else into the mix.

“Temper, temper,” Jaxon Tremain
chided. He was one of two agents who hung out with the sexy otherworlder, and
the resident smoother. There was something unnaturally calming about his
presence, as if he could slink inside a person’s psyche and wash away her
fears. “Would you kiss me with that mouth?”

“Funny,” she said dryly.

She could hear the others chortling
and snorting with more surprised amusement. Someone said,

Mishka was Jaxon’s wife and a hired
killer who possessed a robotic arm. Aleaha had only seen her once, but that had
been enough to scare ten years off her life. Never had she seen eyes so cold or
heard a voice so uncaring. Of course, the moment Mishka spied Jaxon, her entire
demeanor had changed. So had Jaxon’s, for that matter. Usually he was as con-
servative as a priest. One glance at Mishka, though, and he’d morphed into
gutter man.

Aleaha had marveled at the change in
him, a change she was witnessing once again. Empathetic as he was, perhaps he
was veering onto the perverted track now to get her mind off the bloody
massacre sure to begin. Apparently, though, she didn’t need help today. She
couldn’t concentrate worth a damn. What was wrong with her?

“Well,” Devyn said, drawing the
spotlight back to him. As always. “Be a good lollipop and answer the man. Will
you kiss him or not?”

“I could give you a list of all the
things I’ll never do to you with my mouth,” she muttered. “How ’bout that?”

Devyn laughed, and, yep. It was wicked
desire. “She reminds me of Mia when she talks like that. Tell us, Lolli, is
that list for everyone or just Jaxon?”

“All right, team,” Mia Snow herself
interjected before Aleaha could reply. “Save it. You know I only want you to
stun these men. Do not burn them. I repeat, do not burn them. An open wound
will bleed and that will spread their infection. And believe me, I will kill
every single one of you myself if that happens.”

There was a moment of frightening
silence. Infection. What a delightful reminder. Not only were the warriors
coming here vicious, there was a possibility that they were bringing the plague
with them.

“Good,” Mia continued. “I’ve got your
attention. Solar flare approaching in ten.” She was inside a van about a mile
away, watching the action on a night- vision monitor with a handful of backup
agents. “Nine.”

Aleaha tensed. A few months ago, a big
case had busted wide open and AIR had learned that otherworlders were traveling
to Earth through interworld wormholes that initiated with solar flares. Then, a
few weeks after that, another case had come to light. Members of a race of
aliens known as the Schön had descended, their bodies carriers of a virus that
passed to humans through their blood and ejaculate. This virus turned men and
women into cannibals. Their queen—or living host of this sickness—was on her way
here, due to arrive in the near future.

Tonight, ten members of her horde were
supposed to utilize one of those wormholes. Their purpose: to smooth the way
for her. Which meant, destroying AIR.

“Six.”

Shit. The countdown. Despite the
frigid temperatures, sweat beaded on Aleaha’s brow, dripping from the brim of
the white cap she wore. Stay calm. Youhave to stay calm.

“Five.”

Though her résumé claimed she’d worked
as a cop for more than two years, this was actually Aleaha’s first
mission.

What seemed forever ago but had only
been a few months, she’d stumbled upon the body of a woman who’d been raped and
killed in a back alley—a woman she’d recognized as Miss New Chicago’s Finest in
Uniform calendar girl, Macy Briggs.

She’d almost walked away. The higher
the public profile, the more scrutiny she received. But . . .

Already tired of the adult-toy-store
clerk identity she’d previously stolen, Aleaha had seized the chance to better
herself, hiding the body and shifting so that she was an exact match to Macy’s
appearance, thereby claiming the woman’s life as her own.

Only later had she learned that Macy
had applied to AIR and been accepted. To back out would have looked suspicious
and changing identities yet again hadn’t appealed. So she’d done it. She’d attended
that first day, then the next. And the next. They’d watched her suspiciously,
as if they knew the truth, but they had never accused her and she’d realized
she was probably paranoid. Soon they’d even relaxed, accepting her as one of
their own. Now, here she was, done with trials and on mission one.

Shit. She’d missed the end of the
first countdown? She was practically begging to be killed tonight.

“Seven. Six.”

Oh, God. What if she did, in fact, die
out here? What if she lost everything she’d worked so hard to gain? Her gun
hand shook. You have to stay calm,damn it.

With bouts of extreme emotion, she
shifted from one identity to another without any control. “Four. Remember, guns
set to stun and only stun.”

Her pyre-gun was already dialed to the
proper setting, so she curled her index finger around the trigger and swallowed
the hard lump in her throat. Breathe in, breathe out. You do know how to
fire aweapon, at least. A skill she’d learned from her only true
friend, Bride McKells. A vampire, and her champion. They’d been separated more
than a decade ago, chased apart by cops who’d caught them breaking into homes
for food, and Aleaha hadn’t been able to find her since. She’d never stop
looking, though.

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